Defending Kyra (Guardians Book 1)

by Susan Hayes

  Gareth lifted a hand and stared down at the veins that showed at his wrist, wondering again at the strange biology that allowed him to exist at all. Vlad was his enemy, but also his ancestor. The creature had passed on a part of himself to the child of Mina and Jonathan Harkness and started a new line of dhampirs.

  He grinned to himself. Bram Stoker’s version of events skipped over a few pertinent facts, and for a writer, he hadn’t done much to change the names of the parties involved. Harker to Harkness wasn’t much of a leap.

  9

  KYRA SLEPT the sleep of the truly exhausted, her mind and body quiet for the first time in days. For hours she slept in the dreamless void as her body strove to heal itself from all its shocks and injuries. In the darkest part of the morning though, something changed.

  The moment she realized she was dreaming, she was afraid. She knew the feel of this dream and understood that somehow Vlad had gotten to her, despite Gareth’s promises. The very air felt wrong, and as she drew in a breath to scream she nearly choked on the wet, metallic stink of blood and gore that filled her lungs. In her dream it was too dark to see, so she stumbled on, moving slowly, her arms spread out as she tried to find her way. Her feet were bare and she could feel something warm squish between her toes with each step. Something brushed her ankle and she screamed again, the sound strangely muffled as though the air itself had absorbed the sound.

  Cold breath tickled the back of her neck, and she spun around, lashing out with her fist. There was nothing there. She stepped back and lost her balance as her foot landed on something soft and slick. She landed on top of someone, a faint groan of pain making her recoil in horror as she lifted her hands out of the wreckage of something that couldn’t possibly be alive, but she knew it was.

  “All for you Kyra.” Vlad’s voice slithered into her mind and settled there, making her shiver with horror. “I did this all for you. Would you like to see?”

  “No, please no,” she whimpered, but already the darkness was lifting. The scene around her became visible by degrees, as if somewhere a dimmer switch was slowly being turned to high. It was her motel room, the one she’d been in only a few hours before, though she could barely recognize it. He’d turned it into a slaughterhouse. There was blood everywhere, coating the walls, covering the furniture, and pooling at her feet. She was standing in a lake of death, surrounded by the remains of strangers, their bodies torn and savaged until they were barely recognizable as human. Only one was still alive, faint moans of pain coming from a throat half torn away. It was a woman with strawberry-blonde hair and blue eyes. Kyra turned and ran.

  He caught her easily, holding her as she thrashed and screamed. “All for you, my sweet. The wards were not easy to cross. They had to die so I could see you.”

  “No!” She screamed and shut her eyes, finally remembering that this was only a dream. “I am not here, you can’t touch me! I’m safe and this is not real!”

  His laughter fell around them like shattering crystal. “Not real, no, but real enough for now. If I drink from you in your dreams, do you think you’d feel it when you wake? If I took you now, would you wake up wet and crying out in pleasure?” She felt his tongue slither over her ear and shuddered as he played with the rings that pierced her ear rim. “Does your half-breed touch you like this? Does he make you wet and needy?”

  She felt his hands glide over her skin and realized she was naked, her skin stained with the blood of the dead. “He makes me feel alive.” She snarled and tried to peel his hands from her body. “You make me feel sick.”

  “I can make you feel such pleasure. When you are mine, I am going have you in every way imaginable, and you will crave my touch and beg me to do it again and again. We are going to be good, you and I. We will have centuries of pleasure, my sweet Kyra.”

  “Go to hell! I will never belong to you, you’re a monster! Now let me go!”

  Kyra threw off his control, taking command of the dream and tearing it apart, scattering the dreamscape into a thousand nightmarish pieces. She woke up screaming.

  Gareth was beside her in a heartbeat, his arms wrapping around her as she struggled to breathe. She lashed out, her fists falling on his chest and shoulders as she sobbed. “You said he couldn’t reach me! You promised me I was safe!” Over and over she repeated the words as he held her, never once trying to block the blows she landed against his hard body.

  “I’m sorry, so sorry. He shouldn’t have been able to. I’m sorry, Kyra.” He whispered his apologies, his arms around her and his hands stroking up and down her back as she slowly calmed.

  “So much blood,” she murmured at last. “All dead, all because of me.” She felt her body go numb and cold, her very soul-sick from what she’d seen.

  “No, sweetheart, not because of you. He wants you to believe that because it helps him to break you down.”

  She felt Gareth start to move away from her, and she wrapped her arms around his shoulders. “Don’t leave me!”

  “I will never leave you.” His words helped push back the darkness that crowded her soul. “I was going to run you a bath. Would you like that?”

  “Yes.” She nodded, her arms still holding tight. “But I don’t want you to leave me, Gareth. Please. It’s not so dark when you’re with me.”

  “Then we’ll go together.” He gathered her into his arms and lifted her out of bed with ease. “I can’t think of anything I’d rather do than help you bathe.”

  Kyra stirred in his arms and cracked open one eye to look up at him. “Please tell me you weren’t just hitting on me, again. You have the oddest sense of timing of any man I have ever met.”

  “Welcome back, sweetheart.” He smiled down at her and she realized he’d been baiting her. The darkness faded away, replaced with a sense of warmth and something more as she bathed in the light of his smile. She smiled up at him and in that instant knew what she truly needed. Him.

  “Just for that, you have my permission to bathe with me.”

  Surprise flared in Gareth’s eyes, followed immediately by heat so intense it chased the chill from her body and kindled an answering flame in her heart. “I’m holding you to that.”

  “Good,” she answered as smoothly as she could, given that her throat had gone dry and her pulse was racing again.

  He sat her down on the counter and started running the bath water, dumping in half a hotel-size bottle of shampoo as it filled. “Now it’s a bubble bath.” He glanced over at her, his concern still clear to see. “Are you ready to tell me about it? I need to know what happened.”

  Kyra drew her lower lip into her mouth and chewed on it and then finally nodded. “No time like the present, huh?” She hopped down off the counter and gave him an intent look. “You turn around though. I don’t need an audience for disrobing. I’ll multitask.”

  “Spoilsport.” He gave her a woebegone look that would have done a lost puppy dog proud and turned around to face the doorway.

  “No peeking!” Kyra tugged off her clothing and folded it neatly on the counter, part of her mind still surprised to see that her skin was clean and not covered in blood as she’d seen it in her nightmare.

  “I started dreaming, and I knew right away it was him. It felt all wrong, and I guess I’ve sort of gotten used to the way it feels when he’s messing with my head.” She tested the bathwater and adjusted the taps, adding more hot water.

  “It was pitch black, but I could smell and taste blood in the air.” She shivered at the memory and scrubbed a hand over her neck where she had dreamt his tongue had touched her skin. “I really hate it that I know what a room soaked in blood smells and tastes like now. I could’ve done without ever knowing that.”

  She glanced up and caught Gareth’s eyes in the mirror, his hazel ones filled with desire as they drank in her reflection. “I said no peeking,” she murmured and felt a blush creep up her neck.

  “Sorry.” He turned his head so he couldn’t watch any longer. “I was never very good at resisting temptati
on.”

  Kyra stepped into the bath and sighed with contentment as the hot water drove the chill from her bones. Sinking down under the bubbles, she closed her eyes and tried to relax. “You can turn around now.”

  She heard him move and caught the strangled moan he bit back as he turned and saw her, then there was a rustle of fabric and the telltale sound of a zipper opening. A moment later, his hand touched her cheek. “You’re going to need to move up, sweetheart.”

  She opened her eyes and got an eyeful of broad chest and hot-eyed man kneeling beside the tub. “Right, moving,” she murmured and sat up, her hands crossing over her breasts as she made room for him behind her. He stood up, and Kyra’s breath caught in her throat as she caught a glimpse of muscular thighs and his thick, rampant cock rearing up between them. Then he was behind her, long legs sliding down alongside hers as he drew her against his chest and settled himself against the back of the tub.

  “Tight fit, but it works.” His voice was a low rumble near her ear. His arms were still around her waist, forearms crossed over her stomach as he held her. There was no mistaking the hard shaft she could feel pressed against the small of her back either. “Now, back to your nightmare. Was it somewhere you recognized?”

  She lowered her arms to cover his and laid her head against his shoulder. “It was the motel room you found me in. Only it was full of corpses. Corpses and blood.” She described the room and the carnage in it, dredging up every terrible detail in case it would prove important later. As she talked he washed them both, keeping hold of her with one arm as he lathered her upper body with a well-soaped cloth.

  “The woman, she looked like you?” His voice drew her back out of the nightmare images she had been recounting.

  “She had red-blonde hair and blue eyes. She was the only one left alive, but I don’t think she was going to last much longer. Her throat was all torn up.” She heard Gareth mutter something and turned her head so she could look at him. “What?”

  “A surrogate. She was likely a surrogate for you, like the first woman he killed. When he can’t have what he wants, he is driven to find one that reminds him of you.”

  “Oh god.” Kyra’s chest felt tight and she wrapped her fingers around Gareth’s arms, holding him tight. “That poor woman.”

  “It’s not your fault, sweetheart. You didn’t ask for any of this.” He nuzzled her hair. “None of this is your fault.”

  “You just keep reminding me of that and I’ll keep trying to believe it.” She shifted her body slightly, letting her legs drift along his. “After that, I ran and he caught me. He–He touched me and licked me and told me I was going to be his and that he was going to pleasure me for centuries.” Despite the heat of the water, a chill washed over her soul and she bit back a horrified moan.

  “I know this is hard, but I need to know exactly what he said. It’s important.” He held her close, one hand leaving her waist to cross her chest, his forearm between her breasts and his fingers curving around her shoulder. “I’ve got you, Kyra. You’re safe.”

  “He asked me if you touched me the way he was touching me, and if I liked it. I told him that your touch made me feel alive, and his made me feel sick.”

  She heard him laugh, the vibrations rumbling through her as he held her tight. “That’s my girl.” Gareth’s lips brushed her temple.

  “He said he’d killed them all for me, because the wards were strong and it had taken their deaths to give him the strength to see me.”

  “So that’s how he did it. Those wards should have been unbreakable, even for him. He shouldn’t have been able to break through at all unless he’d already tasted your blood and deepened the bond.” Gareth mused aloud. “But you said you haven’t slept anywhere he could get to you. I really thought you’d be safe from him here.”

  Flashes of memories and fragments of the dream in her office filled Kyra’s mind and she sighed. “I think maybe he did get to me. Yesterday I grabbed a catnap in my office before the club opened. I still don’t remember everything, but I think he was there. He was there, touching me, and he-he was so cold and I thought it was a dream, but it wasn’t. He had his hands all over and I let it happen!” She moaned in horror again and closed her eyes tight, trying to banish the memories.

  “Did he bite you, Kyra? Did he make you drink anything?” Gareth’s voice was thick with emotion and his arms tightened their hold around her.

  “I didn’t drink anything, no. But I think he was sucking on my finger.” She lifted her hand and showed the small cut, not yet healed, on her index finger. “When I woke up, I wondered where the bandage had gone, and the fingertip was wet.”

  “Shit,” Gareth swore. “Well, that explains how he got to you through the wards. The good news is he won’t be able to do it again, not tonight. He expended all that energy just to get into your head. He’s desperate, Kyra, and that’s good for us.”

  “Not for the people he killed,” she protested softly.

  “No, not for them. But he’s feeling threatened, and that means he’s more likely to make mistakes. He knows I want you, too, Kyra, and if you give yourself to me—” He paused. “He knows he’s running out of time.”

  “If I give myself to you, what? What happens?” Kyra twisted in his arms so she could look at him properly, her water-slicked skin sliding over his and lust coursing through her at the sensation.

  “Only one of us can claim a blood bond, Kyra. If you are mine, you can never belong to him. He could still kill you, but he could never make you his.”

  “Then do it!” She stared into his eyes and then kissed him, her body wriggling out of his grasp and turning until she was straddling his hips, her arms locked around his shoulders.

  “No.” He turned his head, breaking the kiss. “Not just to keep you from him. I want you to want it, Kyra, to want me. I will protect you to my dying breath, but I will not agree to this until you are certain it’s what you really want.” His hands slipped to her hips, holding her still against his groin and the hard shaft that lay between her legs. “There can be no going back from that. If you and I take that step, it’s for life.”

  “Dhampir don’t do divorce?” Kyra leaned in and pressed a soft kiss to the corner of his mouth. “All right, I got it. Bonding is a big deal and you don’t want to be stuck with me for your entire life just because you were a better option than an eternity with fang face.”

  His lips quirked into a grin and he turned his head to capture her mouth in a long, heated kiss. “You are an amazing woman,” he muttered against her lips as he finally ended their kiss. “And one day I hope you will choose to be with me. Until then, I am hoping you are open to pre-bonding sex, because now I’ve had you naked in my arms I have no intention of letting you out of my bed.”

  “I think that’s the safest place for me. If I’m in your bed you won’t have to go far to protect me, now will you?” She barely recognized her voice in the sensual purr that rose from her throat as she wriggled herself against his length.

  “Exactly.” She felt him lift her off of him and then the next thing she realized they were soaking wet and in her bed, his body pressing her down into the mattress as he blazed a trail of kisses across her throat.

  “Cheater.” Her laughter morphing into a low moan of need as his hand found her breast.

  “I didn’t want you to have time to change your mind.”

  10

  HE GLORIED in the sensation of having her warm and willing in his arms at last. It didn’t matter how they’d come to this point. All that mattered was that she was his for this moment, and he’d be damned if he was going to let her go. She’d been a fire in his blood since she’d opened the door of that motel room, making him ache for her with every word and move. If any other woman had pointed a gun at him, he’d have taken it badly, but when Kyra had done it, all he wanted to do was kiss her again and again.

  Her skin was slick and warm from the bath, their bodies gliding over each other as he kissed her deep and coaxed
her tongue to tangle with his. His hands wanted to be everywhere, laying claim to each and every inch of her sweet body. He settled on her breasts, unable to hold back the growl of satisfaction at finally having their warm weight in his palms. As she arched herself into his hands his lust spiked and he groaned into her mouth, her responsive body making his already-hard cock even stiffer.

  His fingers found her nipples, plucking and teasing until they stood out from the soft globes of her breasts, hardened pebbles he could roll between his fingers. He heard her panting breaths turn to a whimper of need as his fingers continued their sensual torture, and he lifted his head to watch. “You are so beautiful,” he told her as his eyes drank in the sight of her naked body, flushed both with the heat of their shared bath and her growing desire.

  Her soft fingers touched his cheek and she smiled up at him. “Make me feel alive, Gareth, please.”

  “With great pleasure.” He began kissing his way down her body, sampling her skin with slow swipes of his tongue. He worked his way lower, fighting his own impatience every second. He wanted nothing more than to roll her onto her stomach, lift her hips in the air, and take her hard, but he knew she deserved so much more. This was a woman the fates believed could be his match in all ways. He would win her over so that when the day came that she had to make her choice, there would be no hesitation.

  Kyra arched beneath him as his mouth found her breast and sucked on it hard, drawing the soft flesh into his mouth as his tongue lapped at her nipple. He released her with a soft pop of breaking suction and gathered both breasts in his hands, lifting and pressing them together so he could move from one nipple to the other, back and forth until he heard her cry out his name. Even then he didn’t stop. Her soft cries continued as he carefully shifted his body to kneel between her legs, as his mouth stayed busy laving at her breasts.

  Her nails scored his shoulders, and she bucked beneath him, one leg lifting to curl around his thigh. “Need you,” she whispered, her voice making his balls tighten and his blood sing.